Part 27 (1/2)

And Julia, without calling or forming the thought, discovered an answer grown in her mind: an impression, a feeling.

What kind of a man?

A lonely man.

It came upon her like a chill. She rose from the pillowed chair, lightly. ”I think,” she said, ”I'll go on to my room.”

”Are your windows good and locked?”

”Yes.”

”You'd better make sure. All he'd have to do is climb up the drainpipe.” Maud's expression was peculiar. Was she really saying, ”This is only to comfort you, dear. Of the three of us, it's unlikely he'd pick on you.”

”I'll make sure.” Julia walked to the hallway. ”Good night.”

”Try to get some sleep.” Louise smiled. ”And don't think about him, hear? We're perfectly safe.He couldn't possibly get in, even if he tried. Besides,” she said, ”I'll be awake.”

(_He stopped and leaned against a pole and looked up at the deaf and swollen sky. It was a movement of dark shapes, a hurrying, a running_.

_He closed his eyes_.

”The moon is the shepherd, The clouds are his sheep . . .”

_He tried to hold the words, tried very hard, but they scattered and were gone_.

_He pushed away from the pole, turned, and walked back to the gravel bed_.

_The hunger grew: with every step it grew. He thought that it had died, that he had killed it at last and now he could rest, but it had not died. It sat inside him, inside his mind, gnawing, calling, howling to be released. Stronger than ever before_.

”The moon is the shepherd . . .”

_A cold wind raced across the surrounding fields of wild gra.s.s, turning the land into a heaving dark-green ocean. It sighed up through the branches of cherry trees and rattled the thick leaves.

Sometimes a cherry would break loose, tumble in the gale, fall and split, filling the night with its fragrance.

The air was iron and loam and growth_.

_He walked and tried to pull these things into his lungs, the silence and coolness of them_.

_But someone was screaming, deep inside him. Someone was talking_.

”_What are you going to do--_”

_He balled his fingers into fists_.

”_Get away from me! Get away!_”

”_Don't--_”

_The scream faded_.

_The girl's face remained. Her lips and her smooth white skin and her eyes, her eyes_ . . .

_He shook the vision away_.

_The hunger continued to grow. It wrapped his body in sheets of living fire. It got inside his mind and bubbled in hot acids, filling and filling him_.

_He stumbled, fell, plunged his hands deep into the gravel, withdrew fists full of the grit and sharp stones and squeezed them until blood trailed down his wrists_.

_He groaned, softly_.

_Ahead, the light glowed and pulsed and whispered, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here_.

_He dropped the stones and opened his mouth to the wind and walked on_ . . .) Julia closed the door and slipped the lock noiselessly. She could no longer hear the drone of voices: it was quiet, still, but for the sighing breeze.

What kind of a man . . .

She did not move, waiting for her heart to stop throbbing. But it would not stop.

She went to the bed and sat down. Her eyes travelled to the window, held there.

”He's out there somewhere . . .”

Julia felt her hands move along her dress. It was an old dress, once purple, now gray with faded gray flowers. The cloth was tissue-thin. Her fingers touched it and moved upward to her throat. Then undid the top b.u.t.ton.

For some reason, her body trembled. The chill had turned to heat, tiny needles of heat, puncturing her all over.

She threw the dress over a chair and removed the underclothing. Then she walked to the bureau and took from the top drawer a flannel nightdress, and turned.

What she saw in the tall mirror caused her to stop and make a small sound.

Julia Landon stared back at her from the polished gla.s.s.

Julia Landon, thirty-eight, neither young nor old, attractive nor unattractive, a woman so plain she was almost invisible. All angles and sharpnesses, and flesh that would once have been called ”milky” but was now only white, pale white. A little too tall. A little too thin. And faded.

Only the eyes had softness. Only the eyes burned with life and youth and--.

Julia moved away from the mirror. She snapped off the light. She touched the window shade,pulled it slightly, guided it soundlessly upward.

Then she unfastened the window latch.

Night came into the room and filled it. Outside, giant clouds roved across the moon, obscuring it, revealing it, obscuring it again.

It was cold. Soon there would be rain.

Julia looked out beyond the yard, in the direction of the depot, dark and silent now, and the tracks and the jungles beyond the tracks where lost people lived.

”I wonder if he can see me.”

She thought of the man who had brought terror and excitement to the town. She thought of him openly, for the first time, trying to imagine his features.